Special Events

Symposium

The 70th Symposium – “Molecular Approaches to Controlling Cancer” – once again included the annual Dorcas Cummings lecture. Charles Sawyers’ outstanding lecture on “Making Progress Through Molecular Attacks on Cancer” was presented to a mixed audience of scientists and lay friends and neighbors of the laboratory. Following the lecture, more than 20 of our neighbors graciously opened their homes and hosted dinner parties for Symposium participants and Laboratory friends alike.

The 11th Annual Gavin Borden Visiting Fellow Lecture –in memory of the publisher of Molecular Biology of the Cell – was held on Wednesday, March 9. Dr. Huda Zoghbi, a Professor of Pediatrics, Neurology, Neuroscience, and Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, gave this year's lecture titled "Cross-Species Studies to Unfold the Pathogenesis of a Neurodegenerative Disease."

Public Lectures
The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cultural Series is a tradition in which an eclectic mix of artists, writers, and scientists present lectures, concerts and exhibits that provide compelling glimpses of how we experience, discover, live in and make sense of our world. Open to the public, the aim of the Cultural Series is to stimulate, inspire and entertain.

Huda Zoghbi, Bruce Stillman, Lilian Clark Gann

April 19
Nina Federoff, Evan Pugh Professor at Penn State University: Mendel in the Kitchen: Myths & Realities of Genetically Modified Food

May 16
Don Axinn, author of seven volumes of poetry and two novels: Discussion & Screening of the Film SPIN

May 17 Rodney Brooks, director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science at MIT: Flesh & Machines: How Robots Will Change Us.

May 23
Sherwin Nuland, Clinical Professor of Surgery at the Yale University School of Medicine and Fellow of the university’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies: The Artist Looks at the Doctor: A Millennium of Clinical Observation.

May 31
Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist at the Columbia University Earth Institute and a Professor of Environmental Sciences at Barnard College: The Heat is On: Present & Future Impacts of Global Warming.

September 13
William Li, President, Medical Director and Co-Founder, the Angiogenesis Foundation: Canines & Cancer: New Therapies From & For Man’s Best Friend.

September 20
Stephen S. Hall, contributing writer and editor at The New York Times Magazine: Short People: Biological, Psychological and Cultural Considerations.

September 27
Diana Reiss, Director of Marine Mammal Research and Conservation at the New York Aquarium of the Wildlife Conservation Society: Exploring the Dolphin Mind.

October 11
Steve Squyres, Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University and the Principal Investigator on the Mars Exploration Rover Project: Life on Mars: Lessons from the Rovers Spirit & Opportunity.

Concerts

April 16 Gilles Vonsattel, piano April 30 Benjamin Loeb and Joseph Lin, piano and violin May 7 Jennifer Check and Ken Noda, soprano and piano May 21 Jose Franch-Ballester, clarinet August 27 Anton barakhovsky and Sonya Ovrutsky, violin and piano September 10 Timothy Fain, violin September 17 Dmitri Berlinsky, Elena Baksht and Suren Bagratuni, violin, piano and cello September 24 Elizabeth Joy Roe and Greg Anderson, Four-hands piano October 8 Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, piano October 29 Daxun Zhang, bass

Joseph Lin and Benjamin Loeb

Other Lectures

Laboratory Trustee Jeff Hawkins (creator of the Palm Pilot, the Treo smart phone and other handheld devices) presented a fascinating lecture, The World Is a Song: How Music Led to a Theory of Human Intelligence, based on his latest book, On Intelligence. The lecture was held in February at The Juilliard School in New York City.

A panel discussion on Memory – and How to Keep It! – featuring Ronald Hedgepath, Ph.D., neuropsychologist at St. Johnland Nursing Center; Zach Mainen, Ph.D., Associate Professor at CSHL; Tracey J. Shors, Ph.D., Professor at Rutgers University; and Trey Sunderland, M.D., Director, Litwin-Zucker Alzheimer’s Research Center, North Shore/LIJ Health System was held in Grace Auditorium on July 26.

A Memory Board advisory committee, which included Liz Watson and several community and library staff members, held an event entitled “Memories under the Moonlight,” on July 28 to promote the Library and Archives’ new Memory Board website. After a brief presentation by Tim Tully on the scientific aspects of memory, Mila Pollock described how to navigate the memory board site. The audience had the opportunity to relate their own humorous or poignant anecdotes of the lab, evoking heartfelt emotions from both lab and local community members, including Jim Watson and CSHL trustee David Luke.

Craig Hinkley (“Gene Recipes: How Much is a Pinch of RNA”), Partha Mitra (“How the Song Bird Sings”). Sandra Kulhman (“Rhythms In Nature and Our Body: Why Does Your Stomach Growl at Noon”) and Wolfgang Lukowitz (“Everything You Wanted To Know About Flowers (But Were Afraid to Ask)”) all participated in our lecture series for fourth- to sixth-grade students and their parents, co-hosted with the Cold Spring Harbor School District, at the Dolan DNALC.

Rounding out our year, Dr. Kanta Subbarao, Senior Investigator in the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases at National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, presented a timely and relevant public lecture, Bird Flu and the Global Threat of Emerging Respiratory Diseases on December 3.

Exhibits
The 2004 Photographer-in-Residence Rueben Cox exhibited his works in Bush Auditorium throughout the month of July. The large-scale photographs of many CSHL researchers were captured during his residency the previous summer